The present invention concerns a process for the manufacture of vinyl chloride from methyl chloride.
Vinyl chloride, whose production has been widely developed during the course of the last thirty years, essentially serves as a monomer, as a base product for the manufacture of chlorinated vinyl resins.
Originally, the vinyl chloride monomer was manufactured by the addition of hydrochloric acid onto acetylene. This process has now been replaced by the chlorination or oxychlorination of ethylene, with thermal dehydrochlorination of the products obtained. These products are widely described in the literature, as for example in "Industrial Organic Chemistry" by K. Weissermel and H. J. Arpe, Verlag Chemie, Weinheim, New York 1978.
The present manufacturing methods, based on ethylene, are dependent on petrochemical sources, in particular on naphtha or on the cracking products of light hydrocarbons.